


Best Laid Plans

by Alethia



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Banter, Cooking, Gen, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Pre-Canon, Thanksgiving Dinner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-19
Updated: 2006-11-19
Packaged: 2018-01-10 17:45:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alethia/pseuds/Alethia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam tries to make Thanksgiving dinner. It goes less well than planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Laid Plans

**Author's Note:**

> Sam is sixteen and Dean is twenty. Originally posted on LJ [here](http://alethialia.livejournal.com/237118.html).

Dean poked through the several paper bags out on the counter. “Why are we doing this again?” Dean asked, pulling back to frown at the hunk of dead flesh in front of Sam.

“Because,” Sam answered, reading the recipe again, for the third time, because these measurements couldn’t be right. How was he supposed to fit three cups in something that small?

“Ah, now I’m enlightened, In fact, I’ve never been this light,” he said, moving over and poking an exploratory finger at the turkey. You’d swear he’d never seen raw meat before…and Sam certainly knew that wasn’t true. “Is it supposed to be this…dimply?”

“How would I know?”

“It was your bright idea. Don’t you have a recipe or something?” Dean leaned over and peered at Sam’s recipe, like he could read it upside-down and four feet away.

“Nah, I figured we’d just throw it into the oven and see what happens.”

Dean made a face at him. “You’re way too anal to be that adventurous.”

“I’m adventurous,” Sam grumbled, looking at the recipe again.

“Yeah, you ventured into a whole different section of the library the other day. I was impressed.”

Sam straightened and pulled on his business face, not rising to Dean’s taunting. He was getting better at that. Really. “Can we get back to the cooking thing?”

“Do we really have to? You’re not gonna make me wear an apron, are you?” he asked, watching Sam warily, like Sam could magically snap his fingers and a frilly pink apron would appear on him.

Because if Sam used magic, that’d _totally_ be what he’d do first.

“Dean, I’m sixteen and I spent five months earning real money so I could make our first Thanksgiving dinner ever. Would you please quit bitching and help?”

He softened, minutely. “Don’t know why you didn’t just put it on one of the cards. It’s not like—”

“Dean,” Sam said, putting some weight into it.

Dean deflated. “Fine. What do you want me to do?”

And now that he had his cooperation, Sam didn’t really know what to do with it. ‘Cause that didn’t make him look idiotic at all. “I dunno. Take out the giblets.” He waved a hand at the dimpled hunk of dead flesh Dean had been poking at earlier.

“The what now?”

Sam frowned and pointed more specifically inside the turkey. “The giblets. Take them out,” he said slowly, enunciating.

Dean punched him in the shoulder by rote. “What the hell is a giblet? That really doesn’t sound good. You’re not having me touch turkey nads are you? ‘Cause that’s where I stop.”

Sam took a breath…and waited a beat. “Dean, this is a hen.”

Dean blinked. “Oh. Right. Well…fine.” He inhaled, like this was some monumental task for which he needed to gird himself—climbing Everest, asking out Mary Sue Jankowski—and he stuck a couple fingers inside the turkey. He bit his lip, twisting the angle, and then pulled his hand out, a little sack now accompanying his satisfied smile.

Oh, yeah, monumental task there.

Sam just looked at him askance.

“What?”

“I never said it was hard.”

“Shut up.”

***

Dean sniffed, loud and obnoxious. Sam shot him a dirty look.

“What?” Dean asked, like he didn’t know.

“Do you have to do that?”

“Dude, my nose is running. You’re the one who’s making me chop these things,” he said, gesturing with a big-ass knife down to the very small cutting board. They didn’t have things to cut on, but man did they have an arsenal of knives any gourmand would envy. Granted, they weren’t exactly knives for cutting _food_ …but they got the job done.

“And don’t you look pretty doing it,” Sam mocked, nodding to his puffy eyes, red nose, all in one inclusive, efficient head-nod.

Sam Winchester, perfecting brother-mockery since 1983.

“I’m always pretty,” Dean snarked, then going back to the onions like he was exacting revenge for all the harm they had ever done him.

“Don’t pulverize them. The stuffing won’t be as good.”

Dean stopped his rhythmic smashing to scoff. “Like any of this is even gonna fit in the glorified chicken you bought.”

Sam pulled his oily hands away from the turkey, looking at Dean without quite believing it. “Are you _insulting_ my turkey?”

Dean brought the flat of the knife to his mouth, a parody of thinking. “Why yes, I believe I am.” He brought the knife back down, turning an arch look on Sam.

“Nice considering I’m making you Thanksgiving dinner.”

“All I see is you molesting a glorified chicken. I’m the one putting in his blood, sweat, and tears over here.”

Sam blanched. “Sadly, literally. I think you just ruined my appetite.”

“Probably for the best considering how this is goin.’ I’m starting to think I need to give you some special alone time with the chicken. Talk about disturbing.”

Sam wrinkled his nose. “First, ew. And second…ew.” Yeah, that was about as good as he could come up with. One of these days he would match his brother’s verbal sparring skills and then Dean would never win again.

For now Dean just smirked at him the way he did when he was about to do his mocking-evisceration thing. “Great comeback. Top notch. Just like the turkey. Theme of your life, huh?”

***

“Why isn’t the turkey cooking?” Sam asked the world.

“I dunno. Is the oven on?” Dean threw part of an onion peel at him, which Sam only knew because it rained down in front of his face. If he looked in the mirror, he’d probably have little yellow-white flakes all stuck in his hair. Great. 

Sam shot him an annoyed look over his shoulder. “Yes, the oven’s on. I’m not a moron.”

“Then why isn’t the turkey cooking?” Dean shot back, pointed. 

Sam sighed the sigh of the woebegone—he did that a lot, come to think of it—and hung his head. How did he end up with a brother like this anyway? “Thank you so much for the help.”

“I am here for you, bro.” Dean laid a hand over his heart in that pretend-sympathy thing he did that got on Sam’s nerves every _single_ time.

“For that? You get to peel potatoes.” Sam stood and shoved the sack at him, arching an expectant eyebrow.

Dean grinned, brilliantly sincere. “Like I said, I’m always here for you.”

***

Potatoes peeled and—mostly—unmolested, they now bubbled happily on the stove. He and Dean were on their way to an actual dinner, shockingly enough.

“Green bean casserole. Most ingredients come out of a can, so I’m pretty sure you can handle this one,” Sam said, looking at Dean encouragingly.

Dean just narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re _implying_ , but I’ll have you know I chop onions like a pro.”

“Slices and dices veggies by day and monsters by night. You could have your own TV show.”

“Better than ‘guards lives by day, solves crimes by night.’ Friggin’ David Hasselhoff.”

“Okay, wow, we really need to get you something to do, you know, other than watching reruns of bad TV shows. You’re way too bitter about it.”

“I’m not bitter, I’m just—”

“Bouncing off the walls since Dad wouldn’t let you go? Here,” Sam offered Dean several cans, “mix these and sprinkle it with the fried onions. It’s very soothing.”

Dean peered at the can of fried onions, distracted for now, which was exactly what Sam was going for. “Didn’t think they let you fry stuff for Thanksgiving.”

“Some people deep-fry their turkeys,” Sam said, offhand.

Dean stopped. And blinked. “Tell me you signed up for that one.”

“Mixing you and hot oil? I don’t tempt fate like that.”

“You’re so vanilla. I would have you know there’s _plenty_ of fun to be had with me and hot oil. I have it on good authority.”

Sam flushed, one of the more annoying habits he still couldn’t beat, not when Dean said stuff like _that_.

“Shut up,” Sam grumbled, turning back to the turkey and ignoring him.

Dean scoffed and rolled his eyes. “We _so_ have to get you laid. For your seventeenth birthday. It’ll be my gift to you.”

***

“Okay, rolls,” Sam said.

“Oh, God, you didn’t make them from scratch, did you? Set out dough to rise? I’m not gonna have to knead, am I? Even the word scares me.”

Sam thrust a package of ready-made rolls into Dean’s chest, which Dean cradled protectively. “See if you can figure out how to operate a microwave.”

“Wow, do I really have to? There are all those buttons. And lights! I might not survive the experience.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “You’d think you’d be all happy-happy joy-joy about having a family Thanksgiving dinner. What the hell?”

“I just don’t see why you need to have an occasion.”

“Uh, tradition?”

“No, I mean,” Dean turned to Sam, obviously trying to phrase it correctly. “Family is family all the time. It makes no sense. What, you barely tolerate your family every other day of the year, but on Thanksgiving you have to love them? Nah. If it really means something, you don’t need a day to celebrate it. You do that every day.”

Sam shook his head at the odd kind of sense his brother made every once in a while. And yet…why couldn’t they just channel it like every other family did? “We can be normal sometimes. It’s not a crime.”

“Dude, you have a heat-resistant chicken in the oven. What about this seems normal?”

Sam huffed out a laugh. “It is not a chicken. It _might_ be heat-resistant.” Sam crouched down, peering in at the turkey. The thermometer still showed no signs of life. “Maybe the thermometer’s broken.”

“Maybe you bought a _mutant_ chicken.” Sam looked up just as Dean ripped open the package of rolls—no opening it the normal way for him—and shook them onto the plate so they all skidded around, tumbling over themselves until they came to a fitful rest, some on the plate, some on the counter.

That was Dean for you.

***

A high-pitched ring sounded from their bedroom and Dean frowned, patting his pockets. “Must have left my cell phone,” he said absently, heading down the hall. He ducked out of sight and Sam could lowly hear the buzz of him answering the phone.

Sam was a little more concerned with making the mashed potatoes right since the turkey really did seem to be heat-resistant. He’d gotten an actual potato-masher for the occasion and thus mashing them actually worked, going more quickly than he’d thought.

At least something was working.

He mashed away, feeling the muscles in his arms flex, adding cream and butter as he liked. Achieving those fluffy white peaks was highly satisfying for him on a completely base level that just wanted something to be done, dammit.

He idly heard Dean walk back in, muttering “uh-huh” and “yes, sir” so it had to be Dad.

“Tell him to hurry up and get here,” Sam said, pouring the potatoes into the serving bowl he’d bought since they didn’t have one big enough. “We can eat the sides while the turkey finishes cooking.” If it finished cooking. Sam could just imagine his father’s comments on _that_. 

“Okay. Bye, Dad,” Dean finished, snapping his cell phone closed. “Sam,” he said and nope, Sam didn’t like that tone one bit.

Procrastination was always an option.

“Hang on,” he said, scraping the last of the potatoes into the bowl, the heat making him wince.

“No, Sam, really—” Dean started.

“Dude, just spit it out already. I’m listening.”

“Sam, would you look at me for two freakin’ seconds?”

Sam dropped the hot pot into the nearby sink, sighing in relief now that the heat was away from his skin. “What?” he asked, meeting Dean’s eyes across the kitchen.

“Dad’s not coming,” Dean said, looking very much like he couldn’t believe it himself.

“Wait, what?” Sam asked again.

“Dad’s not coming home, Sammy.”

A loud sound, not unlike a mini-explosion, came from right to his side and Sam jumped back into a crouch on instinct, in just the right position to get sprayed by burning-hot potatoes. The sting of the potatoes somehow managed to pale in comparison to what Dean had just said. The sting of the potatoes and possibly shattered faux-glass of the bowl that just exploded, Sam decided.

“What the—”

“The heat,” Sam explained dully, standing straight and looking at the fluffy white _explosion_ his kitchen had just become, “it must have shattered the bowl.”

He looked back to Dean who softened from something alert to…something else. “He just—Pastor Jim told him about a wraith a couple towns over. He had to—”

“Had to.”

“Sam…”

“Don’t make excuses for him.” Sam laughed, once, leaning against the counter. “Did he know what we were doing?”

“Look, I told him—”

“And he didn’t care, did he?” Dean remained mutely silent, which for Dean meant a resounding yes. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Sam laughed again, shaking his head, even as he wiped the cooling potatoes off his clothes, face. “Some family we are.”

“Hey, don’t be like that.”

“Like what, Dean? We’re never gonna be the family you think we are. That’s all this is, just another example of how Dad puts everyone else’s children first.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“Yeah. I see so much _evidence_ of it.” Off Dean’s look he shook his head. “Never mind. I’m going to take a shower. No need to worry about the turkey, huh? Nobody gives a damn anyway.”

***

The bathroom door literally moved, that was how hard Dean hit it. “Sammy! Are you still in there? It’s been half an hour! Quit jerking off and get out here.”

“What do you care?” he called back, chin on fist as he watched his toes flex, just thinking. Sam pushed a wet curl out of his eye.

“Would you stop being a pissy little bitch and get the hell out here? God!”

Sam grunted, standing from where he’d been contemplating how normality would, forever and always, elude him. He wrenched open the door to find Dean _right there_ , in his jacket and smirking.

“For the record I was not jerking off,” he felt the need to state, folding his arms over his chest.

If possible, Dean’s smirk deepened. “What, mashed potatoes not sexy enough for you? You might have a problem there.”

“I do not—”

Dean smacked a hand over his mouth, muffling Sam’s protest into an indignant squawk…which really wasn’t the dignified response he was going for. Dammit. “Much as I want to discuss your dick some more, I’m officially revoking your talking privileges until you’re in a better mood.”

Sam, tried to protest again, to no avail. Dean wouldn’t let him go, either, and tall though Sam was, Dean still had strength on him. For now, anyway.

“Ahh, the sweet sound of silence,” Dean said when Sam finally stopped struggling. “Don’t worry; you’ll be in a better mood soon.”

Dean let him go and backed out of the bathroom, grinning like he used to when they were kids, like he had a great secret that Sam was just going to love hearing.

“What’d you do?” Sam asked suspiciously, not moving from the bathroom.

Dean rocked back and forth, heel to toe, pleased with himself. “Won’t find out standing in the bathroom now, will ya?”

“I walk out there, there won’t be strippers or hookers or anything, right?”

Dean affected a stricken look. “Of course not! Would I inflict such women of low character on my baby brother? I’m offended you’d think so little of me.”

“Man-whores?” Sam guessed and ha, that finally got him.

Dean’s grin dropped away, replaced with an incensed look, how dare Sam even suggest such a thing and further, _where_ had that come from?

Sam cracked up, holding his stomach as he leaned back against the sink, the faux-porcelain the only thing holding him up. “Your face!” he laughed, wheezing in air. It was possible he found that funnier than it actually was but he’d spent a really long time cooking and for what? To end up covered in mashed potatoes and with no turkey dinner in sight.

“Well, at least you’re amusing yourself,” Dean drawled, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Would you get out here?”

“Sure, sure. I can’t wait to see whether you brought in the cop or the fireman. Did he bring his _hose_?”

“You’re gonna feel really bad for making fun of me, I’m telling you. You’re gonna give me the doe-eyed, apology stare and you _know_ how manly that is.”

Dean pushed him into the kitchen—not hard to do since it was about two steps away—where Sam found a complete lack of fireman/cop strippers/hookers and instead found a few more pizzas than he’d last seen there.

“Huh,” Sam said, eyeing the veggie like it would up and bite him. It could be a mutant veggie pizza to go with the mutant turkey. It wasn’t impossible.

“Huh?’ I go out and buy you pizza after our Thanksgiving dinner implodes—not easy since it’s Thanksgiving and all—and all you can give me is ‘huh?’” Dean squeezed Sam’s shoulders tightly.

“What, you want me to recite poetry?”

“Only if it’s dirty,” Dean said, thumping him once before skirting around Sam to grab a slice, fold it in half and stuff practically the whole thing in his mouth.

Typical.

Sam grabbed a slice and took a bite—damn good pizza, too—opening the other boxes to see one covered in every kind of meat a pizza place stocked and…and plain cheese?

“You got cheese pizza? You think cheese pizza is a criminally boring waste of ingredients.”

Dean nodded firmly and waved his slice of pizza at him. “Affirmative. However, you are forgetting one thing: we have turkey.”

“The turkey’s not done,” Sam said obviously, slowly, just in case Dean missed it.

“Sure it is. It’s been in there all day, it has to be done. Pretty sure we have hot sauce in the fridge, too.”

“Cheese pizza, questionably-cooked mutant turkey, and hot sauce? Dude, worst combination ever.”

“Don’t be such a downer. You haven’t even tried it.”

“Because if I do there’s a good chance I’ll die afterwards.”

Dean waved that away, turning his back as he grabbed a couple of towels and pulled out the turkey, inspecting it critically. “It looks pretty brown.”

He brought it up to the stove, setting it on the range and then leaning down to sniff at it. “Smells okay.”

“You’re going to judge whether it’s cooked by the way it _smells_?”

Dean turned around and frowned at him, exasperated. “I thought I said no talking unless you were in a better mood?”

“That’s working out really well for you, isn’t it?”

“Smartass.”

“Gee, who’d I learn that from?” he asked, tossing Dean a knowing grin.

Dean straightened, preening. “The best, naturally.”

Then Dean grinned, quick and oh-so-pleased with himself, and grabbed another big-ass knife—they had a lot of those—slicing into the turkey without preamble.

The meat was white.

“Ha ha!” Dean crowed. “Who’s the man?” He turned to Sam, grinning like the crazed, maniac person he was. “That would be me.”

Sam folded himself into a chair and gave Dean a go-ahead gesture, watching amusedly as Dean cut hunks out of the turkey and then sliced them into strips. He grabbed the hot sauce and brought them both to the table, throwing—literally tossing—the turkey onto the pizza and shaking some hot sauce after it.

“There ya go. Turkey pizza in honor of turkey day. Now don’t say I never did anything for you.”

“You can put on my tombstone, ‘here lies Sam. Dean sure did a lot for him.’”

“Take a bite and let’s test that,” Dean said, raising his eyebrows in a challenge.

Sam grinned and grabbed a slice, watching as Dean did the same. They both bit into it at the same time. They both chewed thoughtfully for a few moments.

Dean turned the slice sideways, eyeing it. “That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever tasted,” he said mildly.

Sam forced himself to swallow. “It’s not just mutant turkey, it’s _dry_ mutant turkey,” Sam agreed.

“Think it’d be better with the stuffing? And the green bean casserole?”

“I think it’d be better if it didn’t exist,” Sam said, making a face at Dean’s proposed combinations.

They both tossed their slices back into the box, sans one bite. “We can leave the rest for Dad,” Dean said with a grin, heading back for the other two boxes and actual food. “C’mon, I got Corona. And I bet there’s some cheesy horror flick on we can make fun of.”

“Those movies are so inaccurate,” Sam started his usual spiel, making Dean laugh knowingly.

“Now, you’re in the mood. Up! I’m not saving any pizza for you ‘cause you’re too lazy to pull your ass out of that chair,” he called over his shoulder, as he walked to the couch.

Sam grunted but did as he was told, following Dean onto the couch and grabbing a slice of the meat lover’s pizza. Dean idly flipped through channels, settling onto a definite contender for The Worst Horror Movie Ever and immediately started to snicker at the effects.

Sam chewed, watched Dean for a beat, shaking his head.

Dean caught the movement. “What?” he asked, glancing over.

“Probably better than a stiff dinner with Dad, huh?”

“Better than you two going at each other like you do,” Dean said, frowning at him. Then he grinned suddenly, punching Sam in the arm—hard—and turned back to the TV. “Now shut it. It’d be a shame to miss this piece of cinematic quality right here.”

“Yeah. It’d be a shame to miss this,” Sam said, settling back into the pillows and smiling when Dean laughed out loud at first sight of the “demon.”

A shame, indeed.

***

Fin. Feedback is adored.


End file.
